Bankruptcy and Consumer Proposal Exemptions in Canada: What Property You Keep by Province

Canada's Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act is a single federal law, but the property a bankrupt or consumer-proposal debtor gets to keep, and how long a bankruptcy or proposal stays on a credit report, are both set by each province's own statutes, not by the federal Act itself.

Information last verified on 2026-09-24. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

This article addresses two provincial layers of Canada's federal personal insolvency system: the property exemptions that apply in a bankruptcy under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA), and the provincial consumer-reporting statutes that govern how long an insolvency can appear on a credit report. It covers all ten provinces and the three territories to the extent each could be verified against a primary source; Yukon and Nunavut are labelled unverified rather than filled in. For the federal consumer-proposal and bankruptcy process itself, including eligibility, terms, and discharge timelines, see Consumer Proposals in Canada: How They Work and How Personal Bankruptcy Works in Canada.

How a Federal Law Ends Up Using Provincial Property Rules

The Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, RSC 1985, c B-3, applies uniformly across Canada, but it does not itself list what property a bankrupt keeps. Instead, section 67(1)(b) folds in whatever the province's own law already says. The dollar figures and tests below all trace back to that one incorporation clause, not to a separate federal exemption schedule.

Exempt-property rules matter directly in a bankruptcy, since a licensed insolvency trustee administers and can sell non-exempt assets for the benefit of creditors. A consumer proposal is a negotiated repayment plan rather than a liquidation, so this list matters most as a reference point if a proposal is rejected and the debtor ends up in bankruptcy instead.

Two exemptions are federal, not provincial, and apply the same way in every province regardless of which list below governs. A registered retirement savings plan, registered retirement income fund, or registered disability savings plan is excluded from the divisible estate under BIA s.67(1)(b.3), except for contributions made in the 12 months immediately before the date of bankruptcy, which remain divisible. GST/HST credit payments and certain other prescribed payments are also excluded under s.67(1)(b.1) and (b.2). See How Personal Bankruptcy Works in Canada for the RRSP clawback rule in full.

Property You Keep, Province by Province

Every figure below is read from the current version of the statute or regulation named, as checked on 2026-09-24, and each carries its own currency risk. Figures marked unverified could not be confirmed for this article and are not zero exemptions; they are simply unconfirmed.

Dollar caps versus needs-based tests

Most provinces protect household goods, tools of trade, and a vehicle by setting a maximum dollar value on each. Quebec takes a different approach for a vehicle: instead of a dollar cap, the question is whether the debtor genuinely needs the vehicle to keep working, look for work, or meet basic needs such as health care or education access. Quebec's Code of Civil Procedure, arts. 694-695, uses this necessity test rather than a number. A bailiff enforcing a Quebec judgment can order a cheaper substitute vehicle if the debtor could reasonably use public transit instead.

Saskatchewan works the other way round. Its exemptions are in The Enforcement of Money Judgments Act, SS 2010, c E-9.22, which took effect May 28, 2012 and treats the old Exemptions Act as a former Act. Section 93(1) caps one motor vehicle at a prescribed amount, which s.23(3) of the Enforcement of Money Judgments Regulations sets at $10,000, but it lists "household furnishings, utensils, equipment and appliances" and tangible personal property "required for use by the judgment debtor to earn income" with no dollar figure. Instead, s.94(2) lets a court order such an item sold if its value is significantly more than that of an equivalent item, with enough of the proceeds returned to the debtor to replace it. A court can also let a debtor keep a vehicle needed for reasonable educational or health needs (s.93(7)). Section 93 does not apply to a judgment debtor who is a farmer as defined in Part V of The Saskatchewan Farm Security Act (s.93(8)).

Nova Scotia applies a similar test to household furnishings specifically: the Judicature Act, RSNS 1989, c 240, s.45(1)(a), protects wearing apparel and household furnishings that are reasonably necessary for the debtor and family, with no dollar figure attached at all.

New Brunswick goes further. Its Memorials and Executions Act was repealed on December 1, 2019, and exemptions now come from the Enforcement of Money Judgments Act, SNB 2013, c 23. Section 85 makes property exempt "to the extent that the property is necessary to meet the reasonable needs of the judgment debtor and his or her dependants", including household furniture, appliances and utensils, one motor vehicle suitable for highway use, and tools and equipment used in the debtor's profession or occupation. None of those categories carries a dollar cap, but under s.88 a sheriff may sell such an item if the sale proceeds would exceed the cost of an adequate substitute, and give the debtor the amount needed to buy the substitute. Section 84.1 separately exempts property in a retirement fund from seizure.

Home equity: present in most provinces, absent in four

Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador each have a dollar-capped exemption for equity in a principal residence, and so does the Northwest Territories. Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island do not, based on the specific provisions reviewed for this article. That is a genuine structural difference between provinces, not an oversight in any one statute; a reader in one of those four provinces should not assume a homestead-style protection exists just because it does in Ontario.

Saskatchewan's exemption, in s.93(1)(l) of The Enforcement of Money Judgments Act, covers "an interest in one house, house trailer or equivalent facility, and the land on which it is permanently situated, with a value that does not exceed the prescribed amount", and s.23(4) of the Regulations sets that amount at $50,000. It lasts only while the debtor maintains the home as an active residence (s.93(2)).

Quebec has a different kind of residence protection that is not an equity exemption. Article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that "The immovable serving as the debtor's principal residence may be seized to execute a support claim or to execute another claim of $20,000 or more, not including legal costs. It may also be seized to execute a claim of any amount secured by a prior claim or a hypothec." That is a threshold for seizing the home in ordinary judgment enforcement; this article does not treat it as protecting a home in a bankruptcy.

In the Northwest Territories, the Exemptions Act, SNWT 2010, c 4, s.2(1), makes the listed property of a debtor exempt "subject to any prescribed limits", and that lead-in governs every paragraph, including (f) on the principal residence. The Exemptions Regulations, R-051-2010, s.1, supply the limits: $5,000 for household furnishings, $12,000 for tools and other personal property used in the debtor's business or occupation, $15,000 for tools, all-terrain vehicles, watercraft and other property used in hunting, trapping or fishing for food, $6,000 for a motor vehicle, and $50,000 for the debtor's interest in the principal residence.

Why Manitoba's home-equity figures look so low

Manitoba divides personal-property and real-property exemptions across two separate statutes. The Executions Act, CCSM c E160, s.23(1), covers household furnishings ($4,500), tools of trade ($7,500), and a non-farm vehicle ($3,000, where the debtor needs it for work or to get to and from work). The Judgments Act, CCSM c J10, s.13, covers the home itself, and its current 2023 to 2026 consolidation states $2,500 for a residence not held in joint tenancy, or $1,500 for the debtor's interest where it is held in joint tenancy or tenancy in common. Those figures look implausibly low next to Ontario's $12,997 or Alberta's $40,000, so they were checked a second time against the same bilingual statute's French-language column, which states the identical amounts in French, ruling out a transcription error. The figures are current; they are simply far behind the equivalent exemptions in most other provinces.

Yukon and Nunavut: Unverified Is Not the Same as Zero

No dollar figures for Yukon or Nunavut appear in this article because none could be confirmed against a primary source. For Yukon, the current exemption statute was not located on the territory's legislation site. For Nunavut, the territory's own legislation site states that its posted consolidation is not up to date and separately flags outstanding amendments that have not yet been incorporated into the text shown online. Nunavut inherited the pre-1999 division Northwest Territories' Exemptions Act as its own law at the time of creation and has not been shown to have replaced it since, unlike the Northwest Territories itself, which re-enacted a modernized version in 2010.

Neither of these facts means Yukon or Nunavut has no exemptions. It means the specific dollar amounts could not be confirmed for this article. Do not treat a figure you find elsewhere for either territory as reliable without checking it against the current, official consolidation yourself.

Credit Report Retention After Bankruptcy or a Consumer Proposal

The federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), Schedule 1, Clause 4.5, requires only that personal information be retained no longer than necessary for the purpose it was collected for, and its own sub-clause 4.5.2 acknowledges that an organization may be subject to a legislative retention period set elsewhere. PIPEDA sets no specific number of years for a credit report; the number comes from each province's consumer-reporting statute instead, and those numbers are not the same across Canada.

None of the provincial statutes reviewed uses the words consumer proposal. Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick each reach a consumer proposal through their general adverse-information catch-all clause rather than a bankruptcy-specific one, which happens to produce the same period as the bankruptcy figure in each of those provinces. Newfoundland and Labrador's Act has no catch-all of that kind, so its text does not settle which clause reaches a consumer proposal. Quebec's statute is structurally simpler: everything is destroyed after 7 years, with no separate bankruptcy clause and no exception for a repeat bankrupt.

Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba each remove their ordinary bankruptcy retention cap for someone who has been bankrupt more than once, and none of those four states what limit, if any, then applies. Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador use the same more-than-once exception without a replacement figure. New Brunswick's Act is different: s.10(3)(i) drops the first of two discharged bankruptcies six years after that first discharge, and s.10(3)(j) sets a 12-year rule for the second, but paragraph (j) was excluded when the Act was proclaimed in force on October 1, 2018 and is not in force in the consolidation current to January 1, 2024. A specific number for a repeat bankrupt, such as 14 years, or a claim that the record stays on file forever, is not supported by the statute text reviewed for this article.

Figures That Circulate but Do Not Match the Statutes

Two specific dollar figures that appear on trustee-marketing sites were checked directly against the statute text and do not hold up. Nova Scotia's Judicature Act, s.45(1)(a), has no dollar cap on household furnishings at all; it is a reasonably necessary standard, not the flat $5,000 figure sometimes quoted. Prince Edward Island's Judgment and Execution Act, s.24, sets household goods at $2,000 and a vehicle at $3,000, not the higher $5,000 and $6,500 pair that sometimes circulates.

Two broader claims are also worth flagging. Equifax or TransUnion describing a retention practice is not itself a legal citation, even where it roughly tracks the real statutes; the enforceable rule is the provincial statute named above. And a commonly repeated figure of 3 years after a completed consumer proposal has no located statutory basis in any of the provincial statutes reviewed for this article; if you see that figure, treat it as industry practice at most, not a codified rule.

A final note on currency: Ontario and British Columbia's exemption figures come from genuinely recent amendments (2025 and 2019 respectively), which makes them lower risk. Alberta's regulation carries a 2025 current-as-of cover date, but the amendment citations visible within the section itself do not show anything more recent than the mid-2000s, which is a reason for extra caution before relying on Alberta's figures without a fresh check. Saskatchewan's figures come from the King's Printer consolidation of the Enforcement of Money Judgments Regulations, which incorporates amendments through Saskatchewan Regulations 4/2019, so check for later amendments before relying on them. New Brunswick's Enforcement of Money Judgments Act consolidation is current to January 1, 2024.

Disclaimer: This article provides general information about provincial property exemptions in a Canadian bankruptcy and provincial consumer-reporting retention periods, current as of September 2026. It is not legal advice. Exemption and retention figures in this article that are marked unverified were not confirmed against a primary source for this article, and all figures are subject to change by future amendment. Consult a Licensed Insolvency Trustee or a lawyer licensed in your province for advice on your specific situation.